TUMULTY,
White House, Washington.
June 25, 1919.
I am quite willing that you should make public use of my cable to you about reservations by the Senate in regard to the treaty, with this change in the sentence to which you call my attention:
Quote And to go in would give her a leading place in the affairs of the world, End Quote omitting also the last sentence about changes belonging to power to negotiate treaties.
WOODROW WILSON.
* * * * *
June 25, 1919.
Secretary Tumulty to-day gave out a message which he had received from the
President, as follows:
My clear conviction is that the adoption of the Treaty by the Senate with reservations would put the United States as clearly out of the concert of nations as a rejection. We ought either to go in or stay out. To stay out would be fatal to the influence and even to the commercial prospects of the United States, and to go in would give her a leading place in the affairs of the world. Reservations would either mean nothing or postpone the conclusion of peace, so far as America is concerned, until every other principal nation concerned in the treaty had found out by negotiation what the reservations practically meant and whether they could associate themselves with the United States on the terms of the reservations or not.